Make Enemies Necessary
Death denial promotes in-group/out-group divisions of peoples; indeed, it may be the prime reason for pseudospeciation. We attempt to avoid our mortality by getting into safe groups. The religions of the world are prime examples, but modern humans fabricate many institutions to provide a sense of being in a chosen group for self-perpetuation: nations, corporations, revolutionary cells, political ideologies, even scientific societies. All promise power, heroic importance and larger meaning.
The primitive human mind divides the universe into mortals and immortals, the first pseudospeciation. Alliance with the supernatural makes tribal power sacred. Out-groups lack this sacred power. An in-group represents the sacredness of humankind; an out-group, the nonhuman animal side. This process continues unabated as we approach the 21st century: even today our adversary is an "evil empire" (President Ronald Reagan addressing the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida; March 8, 1983). To rule the out-group enhances the good and controls evil. Enemies serve a double necessity, enabling us to test our immortality power and purge the world of evil at the same time.'6
As Kennan says, there is the "need . . . for an external enemy . . . in whose allegedly inhuman wickedness one (can) see the reflection of one's own exceptional virtue."'7 Our tragedy is that we are never satisfied; we are gods with animal bodies, who can never be perfect. So we are always testing our power and purging victims. Lifton describes the process brilliantly in his book on the Chinese revolution.'8 Mao the godking is the fount of sacred power and those outside the revolution, the nonhuman pseudospecies, imperialistic dogs, class enemies, the tainted ones-they shall be the victims. "We shall smite their dog mouths and our bayonets shall taste blood." Our vulnerability to death causes a struggle for power in which to fortify ourselves and arbitrarily define as evil those struggling to get power over us.
War
From this overview, both biology and psychology see humankind driven to self-perpetuation at the expense of others of our own species. Our need to control and dominate others is deeply rooted. We seek life for our genes and immortality for our souls by showing our superiority over the mortally flawed out-groups. It is psychologically and biologically sound for us to wish heroism for ourselves and our pseudospecies, while trying to rid the world of these evil others. Here, in what Moore calls sacred hatred,19 lies a cause of war. Our enemies are evil by definition. Until we have power over the competing pseudospecies, even if it takes their extermination, we have not proved our heroic worth. But our situation has drastically changed; in our denial of death and quest for power, nuclear war can exterminate humankind.
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